There was a time when I’d be excited about the launch of a new version of Apple’s Mac operating system. I’d count the days leading up to the launch with the same fervour as opening the windows on a yuletide advent calendar.
Apple Mac OS X 10.7 Lion
Installing the big cat
The day of arrival was never a disappointment. The …

How few apps do you actually use?

Ok so how many apps can it show on the first page? I have 131 apps install and about 75 of them are my most common apps that I use on a daily/weekly basis. I know this because the Apple menu Recent Applications stops at 50 and it always removes apps that I've used in the last week so 50 isn't enough.

I think this would work for non-power users who only use a few apps a week but hey, they could probably do everything they need to on an iPad too.

NAS access and Time Machine

Apple has changed some AFP and Time Machine stuff, would have been great if they told other vendors about this, and not their own internal divisions. IIRC, Microsoft used to be slapped pretty hard on the hand for such practices.

My NAS vendor (QNAP) had to push out a firmware update for the AFP issue (now fixed), They are still working on the Time Machine bit (expected soon).

NAS & AFP

Netgear are doing the same for their ReadyNAS range. The newer x86-based boxes have a firmware update out already and the older sparc ones are being worked on now. I'll hold off until they've finished.

@Gordon 10

I guess the point is how soon do they get a release of Lion that is close enough to the finished article in order to do their coding and testing? You wouldn't want a quick release of something that doesn't quite work properly would you?

Scroll Preferences

The biggest problem I've found with Lion so far is with the scroll preferences - I have a Macbook Pro, and I use a Magic mouse with it. I was using the mouse when I installed Lion, and the scroll inverted. I went in to preferences, and disabled natural scroll, restoring the way I expect a mouse to work. Then I discovered that all the gestures on the trackpad were now inverted.

It appears that natural scrolling is a system wide option, rather than being device specific. Mice and Trackpads are not the same Apple. People use them differently and now that particular scrolling option locks them together.

I'd like to see this become device specific, and I'd also like to see the scroll reversal configurable on a per axis basis too.

I guess I'd better get used to either fucked up scrolls on one device or having sys prefs open all the time :(

pointless

What a pointless review. If you've hacked around with the operating system, buggered up the fonts etc how is this representative to a standard user? You should have installed 10.6 with a weeks worth of normal use then upgraded to 10.7

Hacking around in terminal? Special font utilities? give me a break..

FWIW I would class myself as a more advanced than standard user, but not a terminal window level of nerd. My install was fine. All multi touch gestures work on my magic mouse and all my fonts are fine. So.. upgrade to a new OS on top of a hacked around OS and some of it doesn't work? What do you expect. Pointless printing such a poor "review"..

Why people should wait

I gave Snow Leopard a couple of weeks and still lived to rue the install. Should have waited for the first fix pack and it looks Lion will have to wait even longer. I know I cannot do much with my printer or scanner on Lion because the software needs Rosetta, why this useful piece of software couldn't have stayed optional is beyond me. Yes, I would prefer Canon and OKI to release x86 software but I'm prepared to wait rather than buy new hardware. Curious as to what's happened with the APIs and the POSIX stuff. 10.6 contained Apple's infamously borked Python fork.

As I have a standby machine in case my Macbook dies on me (the fan on the old one did twice), I need to know whether I can still restore to another machine without a system disk!

And I need a tip - how can I get rid of the NASNavigator from my system? I installed it to be able to browse my brother's network but I can seem to get rid of it as it keeps telling syslog!

Thank goodness someone thinks that

Finally! Someone actually thinks that you should wait before installing, at least til the initial moans and groans have been fixed. And need we mention Rosetta?! I completely and utterly agree!

If you install it, and everything's fine, I'm happy for you! But I am sick of pro-Mac-ers going on and on and on and on about how cool it all is and then wonder why some apps don't work!!! Didn't you check this BEFOREHAND? God!

Only one issue here

I've had none of the issues you list at all. Even ran Word by accident (I'm not really sure why I have it installed to be honest) and not fonts changed anywhere.

The big problem I have, which made me happy as hell that I'd cloned my boot disk onto an external FW-800 bootable disk, is that my mixing desk no longer works!!! Seeing as my Mac is used 90% for music recording and production, it's a bit of a big problem.

Mine's a FW-400 Tascam FW-1884. Yes, I know it's old, but it's a great desk and I don't want to get rid of it. I've emailed Tascam but had no reply from them at all.

Now I have a choice - use new OS and do no music, use old OS and do music, or sacrifice my desk and buy something else. Suddenly £20 does not seem so cheap ...

Legacy H/W

I have loads of legacy kit that can't be used with W7 because there's no driver support (even using one of the legacy modes doesn't work).

Ultimately you end up with four choices:

1) Make a dual boot system

2) Run a VM for your legacy kit

3) Stop using the legacy kit and buy something up to date.

4) Go without the upgrade.

I have Yoggie Gatekeeper and now that Yoggie have gone bust I fully expect to be going back to a software solution next time I upgrade. In fact it's a good job I archived the drivers I do have as you can't even download those any more.

Not so stupid ...

I did of course clone my drive before upgrading so have a fully working older system the unit still works on. Doesn't change my frustration that if I want to record using the new OS I'll need new hardware.

I've asked Tascam if I can have the code and produce an open source driver for it so we'll see what they say.

However, I would never describe it as someone's 'own stupid fault', that's an absurd statement and says "If you upgrade a system you should expect old hardware not to work anymore", that's a cop out for the manufacturer.

Microsoft managed to create a system where you could run things in another mode so they would still work, and had Apple had a Rosetta compatible mode for example then the hardware would still work.

It's frankly boggling that when we upgrade we are meant to expect things not to work, and even more baffling that people accept it and call the end users 'stupid', when the stupid thing is our acceptance of it.

Mouse

You're doing it wrong

Time Machine on a NAS box

I'm one of those cautious Mac owners who waits an inordinate time before upgrading to a new version of OS X - I prefer to let the early-adopter types take care of the bug-hunting first :-) (For us, our Mac is a working tool, so we need it... well, working. If I want to have fun tinkering with bleeding-edge OS updates, I have an Eee netbook with Arch Linux for that.)

But I digress: I noted the bit in this review about Time Machine suddenly not working with a NAS box.

I really think Apple should have made it clearer, that they've changed TM-NAS interactions in Lion. The first I heard about it was when Synology announced the beta of their DSM OS for their NAS enclosures, earlier this week. They were proud (they said) to be the first NAS company to introduce "full" support for LAN-based Time Machine backups in Lion - however, much as I liked the look of the other features in the DSM beta, if I had to install it at the same time as Lion, just to get Mac network backups to work, I think I'll hold off.

In fact, as I said above, I think I'll wait anyway. That DSM beta looks very appealing, though...

Upgrade

I got burned in the upgrade to Snow Leopard with applications and hardware devices suddenly becoming unusable and I ended up having to replace a whole host of nearly new kit, including a 3 month old HP scanner. With the prospect of DW 8, Office 2004 etc no longer functioning I will be the chap who decides to stay with Snow Leopard.

You reminded me...

I upgraded to Snow Leopard very late (about a month or two ago - ironically, so I could then go for Lion at the appropriate time), and couldn't work out why we couldn't print to our HP LaserJet 4100TN (a veteran network printer) any more.

A quick Google around revealed that we needed to fetch the HP printer suite from Software Update on the Mac... all 1.2Gb of it (good job we're not still on dialup, really). I still wonder what the flip they put in that bundle - a flight sim? An artificial intelligence? SkyNet?

TM on NAS "I really think Apple should have made it clearer"

Thing is Apple don't look at Time Machine backup to a NAS box as officially supported. It may be possible primarily thanks to the NAS box vendors who include the feature that will create a TM compatible network Share for backup. Apple permit it since TM will allow you to select a network destination for backup but Apple only consider backup to a locally connected USB or FW HDD (or an Apple time capsule) as officially supported by TM.

At least that's what the second level AppleCare support droid told me when I had a TM problem* backing up to a ReadyNAS.

So yes they should have made it clearer, but since they don't officially recognise this way of backing up they probably don't care especially since it means you're not using an Apple Time capsule!

*(In case you're wondering, no the AppleCare droid couldn't fix the problem - Google and much searching was my friend).

Had a few problems with Parallels

Basically, the window wouldn't show up. The problem was solved by right clicking the dock icon and assigning it to some space or cancelling the assignment, I forget which. Other than that, they work quite nicely.

Check your e-mail from Parallels

Parallels 6 works with Lion after updating (i.e. Update Parallels before installing Lion).

People on Parallels 4 or 5 are screwed and have to upgrade, for a charge of course. However they've graciously decided to offer a whole $10USD if you upgrade to 6. In my e-mail the coupon code is lion-upgrade, in the message you get on starting Parallels 6 the coupon code is lion_upgrade. Make of that what you will.

I'm not sure if this counts as a advertising, I'll leave Moderatrix 2.0 to decide that.

Oh, FFS

So that was, what, four pages to basically whinge that upgrading a significantly-tinkered-with install of Snow Leopard didn't quite work correctly after an in-place upgrade to Lion?

What's that, you say? The problems were in no small part because your original install had a whole load of software that hasn't yet been approved as Lion-compliant? Well, I say "yet" - if you've got a wagonload of software that you need for work purposes, perhaps giving the developers more than 18 hours from the new OS being on general release to check for compatibility issues would have been the non-retarded^Wsmart thing to do, eh?

Yeesh. I'm not a big Apple fan, but it's really not their fault if you haven't bothered to make sure all your software packages are upgrade-ready before going ahead with the install.

Whilst you have a small point

Surely Apple should be more active is saying "This upgrade will break the following applications you have installed - Do you want to continue?"

After all, this is just an OS *upgrade*. Why should people expect apps to suddenly stop working? If I upgrade as OS, I would expect perhaps some minor driver issues perhaps, but NOT for applications to stop working completely (although it would depend on how big a jump the upgrade is).

That said, I have had similar problems with Ubuntu upgrades breaking a couple of apps. And that was annoying and I would have hoped for a similar warning.

Hear hear

Indeed, reviewer should know better. A knowledgable Mac user would understand that we are supposed to buy brand new hardware with each minor OS upgrade. That we should understand how it all works is a positively outrageous suggestion.

I will now return to throwing birds at pigs on my 27 inch iPad, as Nature intended.

In an ideal world, maybe

Oh come on - is this the first time that an OS upgrade has borked applications that worked fine in the previous version? No - and it's not an Apple-specific issue, either. It's an upgrade in the same sense that WinVista > Win7 is an upgrade - it's a substantial OS revision, and not something to be undertaken lightly.

Yes, Apple should admit that there are possible issues with in-place upgrades. They should probably also admit that there are profitable side-effects of not allowing users to replace their laptop batteries, or from making people pay £20+ a go for an adapter that lets them connect their FruitMachine to a non-FruitMachine display. They should probably also admit that occasionally the concepts that they implement with a very nice UI have already been implemented elsewhere beforehand.

Apple have very savvy marketing people. Do you really think they're going to sour their release-date marketing buzz by saying "careful now, some software might not work with the new version", when they can instead rightly point out that it's the user's job to ensure all their stuff will work with the new OS?

It has long been a very very obvious fact that, prior to a major OS change such as an upgrade, you should check that *anything* you depend upon for work or leisure purposes will be completely compatible with the new OS. Apple could do more to spread awareness of this, but it's still the user's own fault if they upgrade without thinking first.

Tl,dr; - No matter what the marketing droid claims, it's not a fucking magic box. Stop expecting it to behave like one.

Lion is a new OS

"After all, this is just an OS *upgrade*. Why should people expect apps to suddenly stop working? If I upgrade as OS, I would expect perhaps some minor driver issues perhaps, but NOT for applications to stop working completely"

Wrong.

Going from Snow Leopard 10.6 to 10.6.1 is an upgrade (in the same way Windows XP SP2 to SP3 is an upgrade)

Going from Snow Leopard to Lion is a new OS (like going from XP to Vista, ok, ok, XP to Windows 7 would be the upgrade, XP to Vista was a downgrade)

Surely...

Re: Surely...

@Sabba - Shows how little you know. They're basically the same. Do you really think Windows 7 is a complete re-write? No its just an upgrade with some components re-written or updated. Ignore the 10. That's just a name. The version is 7. This is OS X version 7. And the point releases are like service packs in windows

And anyway its XP -> Vista -> 7. Your comparison is like comparing Leopard to Lion.

Ask MS how they did it?

I went from XP to Vista to Windows 7 with a lot of development tools and obscure hardware support applications installed.

The upgrade advisor said what would work, what wouldn't work and what they couldn't be sure off.

It even does the same when you install software on it if there are known compatibility issues (and what the solutions are to the problem - if known of course).

And so far it has got everything right... And the Windows Ecosystem is way larger than the Mac ecosystem...

But then I forgot MS sucks, and when they break compatibility it is a crime against the world, and telling people what apps are broken before you start is a terrible idea; when Apple does it people should just accept that installing a new OS may break stuff with no warnings given...

@Sabba

Here's a clue:

If your 3rd party software provider *hasn't* yet published their list of Lion-ready applications, *you don't proceed upgrade*. I'm not aware of any pressing requirements to have Lion running on systems that shipped with Snow Leopard, other than the usual raging-boner-for-the-latest-shiny that seems to afflict so many computer users (and not just Apple fans, I should add, before someone misinterprets that comment).

The policy of assuming no problems will arise when undertaking any project (whether one as minor as a major OS revision on a single computer, or one as major as rolling out a new OS to an entire corporate ecosystem) is one that will bring you nothing but misery and pain. But hey, don't pay any attention to me and my suggestion that putting a bit of thought into the maintenance and upkeep of a complex piece of machinery with a 3-4 figure price tag.

@Stacy - from what I've seen of the MS in-place upgrade process, you sound rather lucky. I've done several in-place upgrades (from 2K>XP, XP>Vista and Vista>7) and for the most part the system performance has degraded significantly after a few months so I've generally held to running clean installs rather than in-place upgrades.

@Andy 115

"Going from Snow Leopard 10.6 to 10.6.1 is an upgrade (in the same way Windows XP SP2 to SP3 is an upgrade)"

No, X.Y.Z to X.Y.Z1 is a generally considered to be a *patch* in the un*x world where this kind of versioning comes from was followed by programs like Firefox until recently. This usually means bugfixes and security patches.

X.Y to X.Y1 is a *point* upgrade and usually means new features but no break in the API.

X to X1 is a *version* upgrade and usually means new features and changes to the API.

Apple is, of course, free to do as it pleases but it would be helpful if it provided more information in advance. MS has, as far as I know, learned from past mistakes and brought out a program that checked for Vista and 7 suitability. I've gained some kind of migration assistant but nothing that has informed me that 10.7 could have problems.

As previously noted, retaining Rosetta as an optional install would make a lot of the pain go away. The changes to networking are likely to cause lots more problems.

@Charlie

Yes, the Unix world differentiates between point releases and major releases.

In the last decade, we've had, what, 7 OS X releases? All of which have had the same point release numbering system, and several of which have featured *exactly the same kind of problems as detailed in this article*.

What do we learn from this? That Apple's approach to version tracking is not quite the same as the Unix world's. Therefore, other assumptions from the Unix world (such as the impact of installing a point release) shouldn't be taken for granted when dealing with Apple products.

At some point, FruitMachine enthusiasts are going to have to accept that, marketing guff notwithstanding, installing a new release on launch date carries a non-trivial risk of something not working correctly. Just as would be the case with any other OS vendor.

Christ, I really don't see what's so hard about this. You'd swear it was some previously-unheard-of phenomenon rather than the same damn story we hear every feckin' time a new OS comes out on the market.

@Captain Underpants

Not quite 7 new versions in 10 years but it seems you didn't read my post carefully - Apple can call the versions whatever they want. Maybe they're saving 11 for dolphins and whales because they're so pretty.

AFAIK the following were major: Leopard - dropped the classic environment; Snow Leopard - dropped native Power PC support and largely dropped carbon; Lion dropped x86-64 only (less of a problem) lots of networking changes. But YMMV especially if you were doing anything with low-level POSIX stuff. Snow Leopard and Lion have AFAIL broken compatibility without breaking much new ground which is why they were both relatively cheap. Lion is, of course, the entry to the "owned by Apple" world and this is where all the new features are.

I have a Mac and I haven't upgraded yet but I do sympathise with those who feel confused. I have worked with computers for over 20 years and there are still lots of things I don't really understand so I do sympathise with those who do not understand the difference between Power PC and x86 ("endianness", FFS!) let alone the x86 and x86_64 stuff.

It is the easiest thing in the world to offer users a compatibility test for Lion once they have installed the "migration assistant" that we got with 10.6.8. A little notice informing the user that the following programs/add-ons/drivers will not work with Lion and you can check this anytime from "About this Mac" or wherever would save so many problems. Parallels has this built in - it has told me I must upgrade to able to use Lion, why can't Mac OS do the same?

This still does not explain why Rosetta is not available. I also have Windows 7 which has a sandbox for 16-bit apps but it still let's them run. +1 to Microsoft to finally learning from IBM. What was it Winston Churchill said? "You can rely on the Americans to always do the right thing. After they have exhausted all other possibilites."